Revisiting my need for variety

Plus an update on Moments with Lyndsay

Before we get into this weeks letter, I wanted to give a brief update. A few months ago, I opened up for paid subscribers, giving people the opportunity to support my writing. I said I would explore paid content and that morphed into the last Friday of each month being a post for paid subscribers only. Within that Friday letter, I take a topic and explore it in more detail, offering journal prompts and an additional “moment with me”. I’ve been thinking about this lately and I’ve decided to remove all posts from behind a paywall. There will still be an option to support my writing if you wish but I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t want the pressure of creating paid content. I’m just not that way. I see my writing as a hobby, as a way to share my thoughts with the world, and it’s one of many hobbies that I enjoy. So all posts are going to be free and with that I will be free of any self-imposed pressure to write for money. I want to enjoy my writing for as long as I can and the way I see that being able to happen is through removing any pressure. I hope you continue to enjoy being here as much as I enjoy having you here 💜

And now for this week’s letter ….

Hello

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about about this constant need I have for variety within my life. I notice now more than ever my need for a reduction in permanence, in commitment, in my avoidance of planting that flag in the sand. I notice in my thoughts and actions my craving for variety, for a life of change, of different experiences and adventures. I say to myself often that I want to be that person at seventy who has an interesting story to tell. I want to be that person who looks back on their life and thinks “can you believe we did that?” or says “what about the time we did this (insert crazy thing here).”

I think these thoughts have been spurred on by our recent travels, and made ever present by our ongoing conversations around what the future looks like. But living a life of variety can be a challenge, especially if that variety leads you to be non-conforming in a world where everything is set up for you to live your life a certain way. But maybe that’s a topic for another day.

I remembered that I actually wrote about this very topic of variety last year back when I had very few subscribers. There are now a few more of you (thank you so much for being here!) and what I’m going to do is re-share those words I wrote because I realised upon reading it that these thoughts are very much still true over a year on.

If you were here back then, I hope you enjoy re-reading this piece. If you are new around here, I would love to know your thoughts on variety and change and everything in between. Do you crave variety in your own life or are you happy within the comforts of the life you’ve created for yourself? Hint: there is no right or wrong.

I’ll see you in the comments 💜

Much love

Lyndsay

Variety really is the spice of life

When I was a young girl, I would constantly be flitting from one thing to the next, not yet fully aware of my constant need for change. I could never engage in one thing for very long, seemingly growing bored and wondering if the next thing would be better. Everything is always better, until the next best thing comes along. You would think I’d have grown out of this mindset, as I left the naivety of youth and entered into my adult years, but it is suffice to say that I did not. I continue to crave a colourful assortment of pieces to my life that I can fit together in any way that I please.

I’m not fully aware of the driver behind the behaviour. Perhaps a fear of complacency or of stagnation, or maybe a fear of missing out. Could I even go so deep to admit that it is a fear of growing closer to others, of being a part of something forever? I hear people speak about craving the comfort of the familiar, of not wanting to step out from the bubble they have grown to know so well. I want to pop the bubble to see what is in store for me on the other side.

I have a recurring thought of being an eighty year old woman, looking back on my life with no stories to tell, looking back on a life of regret, of thinking what could have been, of asking myself over and over again why I didn’t do what I really wanted to do. I don’t want to have to ask myself why I wasn’t brave enough or courageous enough to take a step out of the bubble. People live like death isn’t real, like death isn’t waiting around the corner. What if you don’t live until you’re old? I want to be able to look death in the face and be comforted by the fact that I did everything within my power to make this life worth living. That I did everything possible to live the life I wanted to live and to be able to say, loud and proud, that I have no regrets from my time on this earth. 

I will admit that some days I envy those people who really have their shit together. You know those people who, at the age of ten, had realised their dream career and walked a clearly defined path towards it, excelling in it for years to come. Or those people who found their perfect hobby, never changing, never flitting. Other days I feel sorry for the people who know what they want to do with their lives. Will they ever get to experience anything new, anything different? It could be that they’re unable to divert from the path they’ve chosen through undue expectations, through the fear of admitting they want to change, through the fear of letting people, or themselves, down. Perhaps it isn’t only fear holding people back. Perhaps it is a lack of courage. 

Without courage, you are simply stuck. Without courage, there is no variety. Sometimes I think my need for variety provides me with the courage to seek change. But please don’t think this means that I don’t feel fear. I do. I fear failure, rejection, embarrassment, shame, pity. My fear is a dark pool which pulls me down, deep down within its murky waters. Some days I can escape, other days I am fully submerged struggling to breath, left only with bubbles floating to the surface. But with each day that I face my fears, the pool becomes shallower, becoming a puddle to only be paddled in. And don’t get me wrong, I enjoy change which I can control. Change which is thrust upon me with no warning signs, without a flashing light or a glaring horn to announce its arrival, can throw me completely off course. But what is a life without change? 

Living a varied life brings with it a greater sense of uncertainty. Dealing with uncertainty is akin to dealing with fear: the more you face it, the better you get at dealing with it. The fear and the uncertainty, they never truly go away. I suppose you have to learn to live your life with them, to see them as friends as opposed to foes, to work with them as opposed to against them. Only then can you break free from the barriers and live harmoniously within yourself. 

It’s quite a paradox, the thought of uncertainty and harmony, coming together as one. It’s possible I’m alone in this way of thinking. It’s possible that with my need to live a varied life, I will never be fully satisfied; constantly chasing, constantly changing direction, constantly constant. I suppose it sounds exhausting. More exhausting to me however is the prospect of a life unfulfilled to my own standards. A life never lived, a life which dies soullessly, silently, sadly.

Does variety in life lead to happiness and fulfilment? Or does happiness and fulfilment come from stability, from certainty? I’m not going to pretend I have the answer. Perhaps it is one of life’s great unanswered questions. All I know is that variety makes me feel alive. It pulls me willingly from one direction to the next, a new opportunity revealing itself at every turn, beckoning to be discovered. Behind each bubble I am brave enough to pop, are new experiences loaded with new considerations, new connections and new conversations. I also know that people should never be judged for doing what makes them happy. Just promise me one thing: don’t allow fear to be the reason why new memories are not made and why old memories are clung on to, safe in the confines of the bubble.